Preserving the memory, and the cells, of the best cat ever

This story begins in May 2007. The Iraq War was in full swing, Windows Vista was freshly released,[1] and I was just 10 years old.

My family's beloved black cat, Lucy, had died. Devastated, I begged my parents: we need to get another Lucy. They must have felt the same way, because a few days later, we visited the Minnesota Humane Society, where there was a crowd of cute kittens up for adoption. One stood out to me, a black kitten with green eyes. The Humane Society staff had named him Spitfire, due to his high energy. But after bringing him home, we decided to name him after an icon of rebirth: Phoenix.

A rare moment when young Phoenix held still long enough to be photographed. Here, he still has both ears intact. In his first Minnesota winter, he [...]